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400th Homicide Recorded in Chicago

July 28, 2017

(SUN TIMES WIRE) A man was shot to death early Friday near the former Cabrini-Green public housing projects on the Near North Side, according to Chicago Police, marking the city’s 400th homicide so far this year.

Just before 3 a.m., two men were in the 500 block of West Iowa when one, age 31, was shot multiple times in the face and the other, 34, was shot repeatedly in the abdomen, police said. The circumstances of the attack were unknown.

The older man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition. The younger man died at the scene, police said.

His death, the city’s 400th homicide of 2017, happened early on the 207th day of the year, meaning Chicago has logged nearly two homicides per day, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Not included in that figure are five people shot dead by on-duty Chicago Police officers during confrontations that are being investigated by the Independent Police Review Authority.

Additionally, the deaths of 10 people this year have been ruled homicides due to wounds that they suffered last year.

It took barely two months this year for Chicago to hit the 100-homicide mark, and the carnage has risen along with warmer temperatures. The city passed 200 homicides on May 9, and 300 on June 18.

Fifteen people have been slain in the last week alone.

The vast majority of the killings — 371 — have come by way of gunfire, the data shows. Fifteen were stabbed to death, nine were abused or assaulted, two were strangled, two were intentionally hit by vehicles and one was forced to ingest bleach.

The victims have ranged in age from 2 months to 78 years old, with people of color suffering the overwhelming brunt of the violence. Nearly 90 percent of this year’s dead were African-American or Hispanic, according to information from the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Women and girls accounted for just 38 of the victims. Nearly two-thirds were black or Hispanic men between 18 and 40 years old.

Violence has centered in South and West side communities that have been plagued by gunfire for generations. Thirty-nine homicides have happened in the Austin neighborhood — the highest number in the city — and 30 have been slain in Englewood.